Of all the hoaxes that ever were, I've never wished so deeply that this was one of them.

http://www.robinwilliams.com/

I've wondered for a while now which celebrity I was sincerely attached to would pass away in my lifetime first. Philip Seymour Hoffman was halfway there. His acting was thoroughly impressive. I'd enjoyed his reemergence into my line of sight with The Hunger Games. Twister, in which he played the outlandish "Dusty" has always been one of my guilty pleasures. If I had a dime for every time I've watched that movie, I'd be retired, which would be slightly embarrassing, but it doesn't matter, because fuck you, I'm retired.

But Robin Williams.... Despite his struggles with addiction and depression, I think it was just something too sad for me to even imagine.

I avoid the evening news, because the world is sad enough without shoving its horrible violence down one's throat any more than you absolutely have to, which is what most mainstream media in America seems to pride itself on.

As a result, last night, while the world was mourning the loss of a brilliant actor and comedic legend, I was playing video games, brushing the cat, convincing myself that cheese cubes and cranberry juice were a sufficient dinner, and watching Hook for at least the 100th time. This is probably literal. In my varying states of depression or anxiety, I find repetition very soothing, and tend to watch the same movies over and over, for the background noise and familiarity.

Hook was one I never became tired of, because it changed with me as I grew older.

As a child, it was simply and naively a movie about Peter Pan. The food fight was, of course, the best part of the movie, and I watched it with extreme envy every single time. I loved Captain Hook and his fabulous, curly locks, the majesty of which were surpassed only by his larger-than-life personality. He was everything I loved, and still love, in a good villain. Even now, I would argue that he outshone even Peter Pan himself, driving the plot with his passionate agenda, and forcing Peter Pan back into the world he'd long forgotten.

Tink growing in size and kissing Peter Pan, the death of Rufio, the entire first half hour or so of the movie- these were just transitional, unimportant filler scenes to me. Potty breaks. Snack times. My childhood self knew where the real story was, and it wasn't in these boring, confusing moments.

Childhood wonder, manifest.

Of course, when I grew older and began to re-watch my childhood favorites, I began to see things in a new light, as we all do. But Hook stood out for me among the rest. Hook was one of a very finite number whose meaning and entire story line did a complete 180. I felt almost betrayed by Peter and by the Lost Boys as I realized just how sad the plot actually was for a majority of the film.

Peter Pan wasn't glad to be back in Neverland at all. The place he had lived and loved for so many years had turned into a frightening and dangerous obstacle course. He had no playful vendetta against Captain Hook, no desire to tease and torment and humiliate him, and worse than that, was now at his mercy. The Lost Boys had looked up to him as their leader, and he had deserted them. He deserted his people, his paradise, his Neverland, only to come to earth, become an adult, ignore his own children, abandon his beloved Wendy for decades at a time, and obsess over money. As Dame Maggie summarized it best in the film, "Peter... You've become a pirate."

The movie ends well enough, but it's still very, very bittersweet. Tink and the Lost Boys have lost their leader once again. Peter Pan will live with the memory of his beautiful, magical Neverland, as well as the curse of never returning to it. Captain Hook, the great villain, is dead.

It's a poignant and heart-wrenching analogy for truly growing up. Neverland is the light inside us that the world will do it's level best to extinguish. We abandon our dreams, and our inner children. We forget our own brilliance and let our hearts take a back seat to simply surviving.

It's so hard to imagine a man like Robin Williams forgetting his brilliance. It's unfathomable. When I was young, he was my genie and my Peter Pan, my friend trapped in the jungle and my cross-dressing British nanny. As an adult, he was my bearded mentor and my tour guide through the hell, my inappropriately-mourning father and my captain. Even what some would consider his lesser films seemed to shine just for the mere fact that he was in them.

In his dramatic roles, Robin Williams would smile this smile... It's the kind of teary, wincing smile you wear when smiling is the last thing you want to do. It was so sincere. It was sincere in a way that only someone who regularly made the world laugh through extreme inner turmoil could portray. I think he so excelled in those cinematic moments, because he felt it in his own life. Maybe, in those moments, he wasn't even acting.

For however much I noticed it before, I know I'll never be able to see these moments the same way again.

I feel it appropriate to mention that Kevin Pollak is currently post production with a documentary called Misery Loves Comedy, which I'm sad to see does not list Robin Williams among the cast members. He summarizes his film as follows:"If you’re a fan of stand-up comedy, and those who perform it, you’re no doubt aware that a staggering percentage are truly miserable. We’ve lost number of great comedians to drugs, alcohol, and suicide. How can they be so entertaining to strangers and so filled with sadness and/or rage with family and friends? The main goal of this film is to shed extensive light on this bizarre dichotomy.... It’s gonna be a hoot."-Kevin Pollak

I wish Robin Williams had been interviewed. I hope he knew he wasn't alone. I wish he'd been able to find some sort of relief for himself that involved breathing, and I know it wasn't for lack of trying that he never did. He smiled as long as he could. Maybe for some people, anything is better than living with the extinguished flame of Neverland.

For my own sense of coping, I choose to believe that Robin Williams, heartbreaking as it is for those left behind, has found relief. He deserves relief. I choose to envision him in beautiful fields of painted flowers, enjoying his own laughter as much as the we did, in a place that will bring him more peace and happiness than he found here with us... somewhere past that second star on the right.

Oops, I forgot about Valentines Day. Well, online, anyway. In real life, however, I made several lovely cards for my coworkers, which I'd like to share with you. Vulgarity and puns run rampant in our day to day; I thought it only appropriate to use both in my craftsmanship.

Well, it's not not true.

This one was for my boss. Hi, Kacey!

Mmmm... sushi...

My personal fave.

This was for the older gent notorious for horrible puns and dad jokes.
He enjoyed it.

See what I did there? It's only the 9th of January, but I'm making jokes like "worst blah blah in 2014 ever lolol." It's such a fresh, funny joke. Have a chuckle with me, won't you?

If you're reading this blog, it means that my brain has been successfully transplanted into my new host body, and that the old one, ravaged by frostbite and severe hypothermia, has (hopefully) been properly discarded.

As you may recall, I live in Indiana, which was recently fucked by the long, cold dick of winter. In preparation for what I assume were record-breaking low temperatures in the Hoosier State (don't correct me if I'm wrong, you nerd,) I set out like any typical American preparing for a natural disaster: I stocked up enough food to survive for a month, then consumed as much of it as possible during the 3-4 day blizzard conditions in order to build my bulk and prepare for possible hibernation. I mowed down no less than 3 women and children with my cart in the dairy section to get a small container of sour cream. I took it upon myself to direct traffic and idiots in the parking lot, because that's what good citizens do.

Pictured: A tangent.

But this year, I decided to take it a step further. I absolutely loathe scraping my car windows in winter. You think that's ice? That's not ice. That's Jack Butt-Fucking Frost getting off on our misery, and jizzing all over our vehicles. He gets hard again as we struggle in vain to to scrape the outer ice so we can see, only to have our breath create inner ice inside the car. When we inevitably fly into a ditch or wrap ourselves around a telephone pole, it's like filthy bukake porn for him. And we're the bitches.

Does anyone else feel like the amount of porn I have to watch for this blog is getting out of hand?
Oh god.... the puns... =(

But I digress.

I hate scraping windows like I hate bills, dead puppies, and being told repeatedly that I need to watch (whatever) television series. So I decided to thwart Jack Frost and make him my bitch this winter. I went out and bought myself a lovely, grey, impermeable car cover, so that when the snow hit, I could simply whisk the cover off my away from my Camry, give it a shake-a-roosky, and store it in the handy carrying case it came in. Considering how effortlessly I was able to cover my car, I was very hopeful that these plans were completely impermeable, just like my car cover.

Well, as usual in Indiana, the trouble started with the forecasters shitting all over our expectations. Instead of a foot of snow, we got what I believe to be 3+ inches of slush (followed by maybe five inches or less of snow,) which of course turned entirely into pure ice in the -40°f windchill conditions. No, unfortunately, that's not a goddamned typo. It actually felt like -40°f during this snow shit storm.

Side note: I had always kind of wanted to experience temperatures of that degree, because I assumed my nose-cicles would turn me into a lovable walrus, and I could build igloos and shit. It turns out, however, that those temperatures are so cold that you can't even piss yourself in misery, because your wiener is frozen shut with ice. I don't have a wiener, but I assume that's how it went down for all your poor sons of bitches who had to be out and about in that nonsense.

The change in weather didn't really phase me, because I'm a cocky piece of shit. I figured hey, if the roads are bad, I'll stay home, and when the roads are cleared, why, with all this preparation, it's just a matter of a simple swoosh, and my car will be free from its ice prison. I actually smirked a little as I saw all the other cars getting covered, while my impermeable fortress of magic material kept the Camry nice and dry.

There were a few little things the manufacturers neglected to put on the box:

2) The quite permeable material will allow water to seep through to the car, then freeze to adhere itself, like crazy winter super glue from super-hell, which is like normal hell, except the total opposite and made of ice. I bet there are lots of these car covers in super-hell. Maybe the super-devil even hands them out as welcome gifts, I don't fucking know.

3) When you do finally manage to free your car from this super awesome amazing so-ahead-of-the-game purchase you've made, take the "Free, convenient storage bag!" and light it on fire, and then light yourself on fire, because I assure you that's more of a fulfilling endeavor than trying to store this thing properly. Houdini would have been like, "aw shit, son" and just punched himself in the stomach before attempting to store this cover. It was like trying to shove squares into circles, or pairing chocolate pudding with corn and tonic water to make soup. It simply didn't work. For one disgusting, unfortunate, brief moment in my life, I knew what it felt like to be Ron Jeremy.

Yeah, definitely out of hand.
....shut up.

Would it have been easier for me to just bend over and take it from Jack Frost? It's hard to say. All I know is that I left the car cover bunched up on the car over night in defeat, and would not have been devastated to find it stolen the next morning. It might have even been worth paying an extra $25 to pay someone to come steal it, just so I didn't have to struggle with my failed plan the next day.

I did eventually get the car cover off of my vehicle. It is now "conveniently stored" in my trunk, probably melting all over whatever Island of Misfit Auto-parts dwells within. This is a fair trade in lieu of lighting myself on fire. I guess.

Seriously, fuck that storage bag, even if the color is lovely. Maybe I can use it as a coin purse or to store my cold, dead dreams of an easy winter, but of the very few things on this earth which I know in my heart to be true, that bag will never, ever, house my car cover properly.

They really ought to just sky-drop these car covers into bad neighborhoods to stomp out rampant prostitution. $25 for a thorough butt-fucking seems like a pretty good deal to me.